It was inspiring and did not disappoint. But Rev. Brent Hawkes says he can't take credit for the sermon he gave about a year ago at Jack Layton's funeral — God gave him the words.

A year ago this month, Metropolitan Community Church Rev. Brent Hawkes went to his backyard with a cup of coffee, a pad of paper and a blue pen to write the sermon for NDP leader Jack Layton's funeral. But at first, the words wouldn't come.

The morning of Jack Layton’s funeral, Rev. Brent Hawkes sat in the emerald patch behind his brick house with a cup of coffee, a pad of paper and a blue pen.

In a few hours, he was to deliver the biggest sermon not only of his personal career but of his young gay Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto.

All week, as chalk love notes to Layton spread across Nathan Phillips Square, the drumbeat of expectation grew. Layton’s ceremony was declared a state funeral. The gay community, the church community, the grieving New Democratic Party, Layton’s heartbroken family, and the rest of us — regular Canadians in mourning of someone who we didn’t know personally, but felt that we did — we all demanded Hawkes rise to the occasion.

Yet, an hour-and-a-half before the cab was due to usher him into the funeral procession, Hawkes had written nothing down.

Not a word.

This is when I’d be crying and panting. Hawkes calmly called to God.

“I said, ‘God, it’s time,’ ” he says, sitting with me in the same backyard on the edge of Toronto’s Gay Village. “And the words poured out of me. I couldn’t write fast enough.”

That sermon was a year ago later this month, but I remember it like I watched it this morning. It was folksy and charming, personal and respectful, thought-provoking and spiritual, and most of all, inspiring. It pushed the envelope quietly, mentioning transgendered rights and Hawkes’ own husband as if both were the most natural things to bring up at a state funeral.

My favourite moment was when Hawkes echoed what he said was Layton’s regular salutation to his husband John, by turning to Stephen Harper in the crowd and saying:

“Hi Mr. Prime Minister. How is Laureen doing?”

He stirred into his sermon both the sourness of death and the sweetness of life, and like Layton’s own farewell letter, appealed to our kindness and optimism.

Like anything brilliant, I assumed it had taken hours of sweat and pacing and nervous practise.

I was wrong. Hawkes hadn’t had time to write it, because he was so caught up organizing the funeral. I’d forgotten: The minister’s job isn’t just to speak, but to co-ordinate the service. He’d spent the week marshalling the myriad demands from the NDP, the government, the Christian churches, the gay community and activists, all of who felt they had a stake in Layton’s legacy.

For gay activists in particular, the fact Hawkes had been chosen by Layton was hugely legitimizing. Only four decades ago, Hawkes’ Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) couldn’t find a church in Toronto that would rent their holy space to a bunch of gay worshippers. When Hawkes performed the first legal gay marriage in its sanctuary 11 years ago, he wore a bulletproof vest.

“There was a real sense of awe,” says Hawkes, 62. “I knew I had to do this right, but I was just so busy. Then, a voice came to me, ‘Just listen, don’t panic.’”

So, he listened: to neighbours, politicians, clergymen, the chalk-dusted mourners at City Hall.

He tried to write his sermon two nights before the service, and then the night before. Both times, he fell asleep.

So here he was, in the back yard, furiously scribbling, drawing arrows and circling words.

That bit to Laureen Harper? God wrote that in the cab, he says. God wrote all of it.

“I take credit for listening,” he says. “I don’t take credit for the words.”

What happened next confirmed Hawkes’ theory. Emails poured in from writers across the country, telling him he’d reignited their faith.

“It wasn’t just ‘Good service, Brent.’ It was, ‘I can’t believe there is a church like this, I’d given up on religion,’” Hawkes says. “The sermon touched them spiritually.”

Many of those emails came from fellow clergymen who’d left their calling, he says, because they were exhausted by their church’s traditional rigidity.

“They are looking for a VIP church. That’s what we are. Vibrant, spiritually inclusive of different ideas and progressive of how we use the scripture,” he says.

His church choir sings gospel hymns and modern music, and as a pastor, he encourages debate, offering not truth, but “best guess theology,” he says. “That’s what everyone is doing but not admitting to. We don’t know, we give it our best guess, based on reflection and reading.”

For Hawkes, Layton’s ultimate unexpected gift was to lead what he hopes is a religious revolution in the Christian Church.

This fall, he plans to write a book mapping out the Christian church’s revitalization. There’s talk too of building a “Church Development Institute” with annual conferences.

And he’s looking for land to build a larger church.

Since Layton’s funeral, attendance at the MCC has gone up by a quarter. It’s now at 700 most weeks — not including the hundreds who listen to the service’s webcast from 98 countries around the world.

Most churches don’t pack in 700 on Christmas.

Last week, Layton’s daughter Sarah wrote her own letter asking Canadians to tell her how Layton’s passing changed us. Given Hawkes’ record, I don’t imagine he’ll write a note on the website www.dearjack.ca. But, if he were to, he might say: “Thank you, Jack. I entered your funeral a gay activist pastor. I left a Canadian church leader.”

Layton, I imagine, would relish that legacy.

This month, Hawkes will celebrate his 35th anniversary as MCC’s pastor and he will preside over another Layton family service — the wedding of Jack’s son, Mike.

If Layton is somewhere with his booming-voiced father as he’d hoped, I bet he’s smiling.

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